Carlos Aguasaco [Colombia / USA]

 

Of Good Sense
 
                                                                                 From a canvas by César Vallejo
 
I must tell you, mother
that there is a place in the world that everyone calls New York.
A high and distant place and even higher,
higher than the church at the top of Monserrate and its sleepwalking pigeons, higher and more distant than the volcano in which our species perished
and its blue ashes burning our mestizo faces,
more distant than I myself was when I went to Paris to visit Vallejo, higher than Vallejo who now plays Vallejo on the ground.
High and distant like me, seen from below when I jump naked into the Hudson to swim
and encounter immigrants trying to reach the shore. Their lifeless bodies calling to me from the depths and I speak to them of you, mother,
of the butterfly that left your womb,
of the day you dreamed I was a midget.
 
Mother, this place in the world that everyone calls New York, it is not Paris, but it has a French lady who smiles at Europe.
On the other end of the telephone line, my mother wishes me springtimes, and here plastic daisies bloom and chicks with rubber tits smile.
 
Mother, don’t adjust my collar so it will start to snow, but so it will stop snowing, let me roam around this haughty island among the lights of Show Business,
in solitude, get me drunk with your absence and begin to live tired of me absent of me, empty of me, deaf of me, blind of me, mute of me, sleepless of me.
 
Under this wall of shadows,
lies a granite Titanic and a child who sobs in the underground trains; the mother of another man wakes him and lies down in his bed.
We, mother, are from another time.
Our skin is the leather of drums and we will never lose our accent.
 
                  (Translated by Carol O’Flynn) 
 
 
From the Center of the Subway Car
 
On my way to work I find fragments of my friend among the subway drifters the homeless     the roofless
the beggars
                                               the a cappella singers and the 

                                               schizophrenic.
 
Some keep their hair in the same unorganized treacherous style others keep their beards wet   with liquor
there is also one that has his symbolist poet gaze and his defiant walking style,
                                              his way of throwing himself to the world everyday like a knight-errand,                                                    like Don Quixote but armed with plastic bags
                                              and disposable cups stinking      of alcohol
                                                                                                  or dripping coffee.
 
I continue my trip at the center of the subway car and I watch them,            in silence, 

my friend has not passed,                   I repeat to myself mumbling, like he     
who hums a song with headphones on,
he has not died                                   he has spread out over the world like pollen
and resurrects every day during        my commute among the subway drifters the 

homeless         the roofless
the beggars
                                              the a cappella singers
                                               and the schizophrenic . . .
 
                           (Translated by Pilar González)
 
 
Two Holy       Thistle Flowers           in the Desert     of Arizona
 
in the distance             like a mirage              two flowers
grow with every step of immigrants              who travel
from south to north     like work                    from south to north
like dreams                 from south to north     like pain
in their throats                         thirst travels                in their throats
their voices travel       too in their throats       like a flower
my parents                  will meet me there      a boy says
and his hand                half- open points         to the thistles
 
It’s true                       they wait there            turned into flowers
they wait there            holding hands             they wait there
and their bowels nourish the flower growing from their stomachs
and their blood has already dried and turned into sap
 
              (Translated by Jennifer Rathbun)
 

 
Author’s Bionote:
 

*Carlos Aguasaco (Bogotá, Colombia 1975)  is a leading figure in contemporary Hispanic poetry in the United States. He serves as Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies and Director of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at City College, City University of New York. In addition to his academic roles, Aguasaco has edited fifteen literary anthologies and published several poetry collections, including “The New York City Subway Poems / Poemas del metro de Nueva York” (Ashland Poetry Press, 2020), which received the 2021 Juan Felipe Herrera Award for best bilingual poetry book from ILBA. Furthermore, he was awarded the 2021 Ambroggio Prize by the Academy of American Poets for “Cardinal in My Window with a Mask on Its Beak”, translated by Jennifer Rathbun (Arizona University Press, 2022). Aguasaco is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Artepoética Press in New York City, and he established the Multilingual Creative Writing Conference and the Americas Poetry Festival of New York. His website: https://www.carlosaguasaco.com/

 

(Photo by Freddy Castiblanco)
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